Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Phillip Berenbroick will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Energy & Commerce Wednesday, February 13 at 10:00 a.m. His testimony in the hearing on “Protecting Consumers and Competition: An Examination of the T-Mobile and Sprint Merger” will argue that the proposed merger is a bad deal for consumers, competition, and America’s wireless future -- and would increase wireless prices and fail to deliver any verifiable or merger-specific benefits.

Remember when Sinclair Broadcasting Group tried to buy Tribune Media? That merger would have allowed Sinclair to reach 72 percent of U.S. households -- far, far above the Federal Communications Commission’s 39 percent audience cap. Fortunately for consumers, Tribune backed out of the deal after the FCC signaled it was unwilling to approve the transaction as structured.

Today, Tribune Media has announced that it has terminated its 3.9 billion merger agreement with Sinclair Broadcasting Group and that it has filed a lawsuit against Sinclair for breach of contract. The withdrawal follows the Federal Communications Commission’s move to send the merger to an administrative law judge.

Today, U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Leon denied AT&T's request for certain documents and testimony in its defense against the Department of Justice's charge that its proposed acquisition of Time Warner violates antitrust laws. AT&T has argued that it is subject to "selective enforcement," that is, that the DOJ's motivation in bringing the case is primarily political, and motivated by President Trump's well-known dislike of CNN, a Time Warner property. The DOJ rejects this contention, maintaining that the DOJ's Antitrust Division alone decided to bring this case.